


Vocabulary

by orphan_account



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: F/F, Female Characters, Female Protagonist, Ficlet, Humor, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Vampires, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-19
Updated: 2005-10-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	Vocabulary

Maladicta was a Black Ribboner, but she was also a vampire, and there were always little things to remind Polly of that even after she'd gotten so used to the near-white skin and faintly pointed ears that she barely noticed them. If Mal wasn't lifting a full barrel with one hand or pausing significantly whenever she needed to refer to a specific drink, she would occasionally drop words like 'xanthocroic' or 'literatim' without apparently even noticing. Polly got into the habit of writing these down and, whenever a library presented itself, looking them up in a dictionary.

The first time Polly threw one of Maladicta's long words back at her – 'Should I assume Boller's transfer request, the incident of the cat, these pearls and your smug expression form some sort of a concatenation?' – there was perhaps a fleeting gleam of recognition in Maladicta's eye. It was only the third time – 'You can't expect too much legerity so early in the morning.' – that she reacted.

'Been looking up some words, have we?'

Polly grinned. 'And whose fault is that?

Mal opened her mouth, then closed it. 'I actually used "legerity"?'

'No, that one was Blouse. But you are culpable of repeated, inimical sesquipedality.'

Mal shrugged. 'Well, I am a vampire. Old words come with the territory.'

'After shrugging off thyestean instincts, I don't see why you couldn't diminish this nimiety of archaisms.'

'All right, you can stop now,' the vampire laughed.

It became something of a joke between them. It got slightly out of hand at the ball held in honour of the new government, so that it was said that at one point of the evening one could not enter the castle library for a quiet smoke without finding half a dozen ladies and gentlemen clustered around the dictionary, looking slightly embarrassed.

'We should stop,' Polly told Maladicta before that evening was out. 'We're starting to look like the worst kind of snobs.'

Maladicta, to whom snobbery came as naturally as being able to punch a hole through solid stone, clicked her tongue. 'Maybe you're right. Just another private joke from now on?'

Polly nodded and smiled. They had many private jokes by now. They even had some officer ones. 'Shall we?' she asked as the band struck up a waltz. They danced (Maladicta led, being the one in trousers) and afterwards, palliated their flagitious deportment by trammeling their discourse to facile confabulation for the rest of the evening.


End file.
